Heritage Grains & Seeds

Our ancestors were cultivating. They grew urad and moong. The soil gave them a different kind of produce, and they nurtured the seeds for it.

— Mukunda Majhi · Udulibeda, Malkangiri, Odisha

The rice crop we cultivate, the valuable horse gram of our family; our ancestors have provided us with green gram, black gram, horse gram, and finger millet.

— Basanti · Nayagarh, Odisha

We cultivate a second crop. The valuable seed of our family is Horse gram. Our ancestors have given us Green gram, Black gram, Horse gram, and Finger millet. We follow the farming methods of our ancestors.

— Basanti · Nayagarh, Odisha

We save stable seeds and kuluth seeds are valuable for our family. We have old seeds like millet, kuluth, moong. We sell them and use them as food.

— Basanti · Dashapalla, Nayagarh, Odisha

We have inherited the seeds of Bhaadi, Kodra, Bati, Jowar.

— Kachala Choudhary

The oldest seeds we have. Millet, foxtail millet, horse gram, green gram, lentils.

— Batakrushna Sahoo

Here, we grow varieties of crops like paddy, black gram, pigeon pea, Kodo millet, Little millet, Barnyard millet, and others.

— Ram Maravi · Dindori, Madhya Pradesh

We preserve old seeds for sowing work, which explicitly includes Moong, Kili, and Mustard.

— Vijay Kumar bhardwaj · Baloda Bazar, Chhattisgarh

Previously, we ourselves used to cultivate moong, Didhan Lar Golandi, Mahipal paddy, red paddy, Kalachu paddy, and Sarai paddy.

— Padmini Bhoi

Here, we cultivate Sawa, Medon, Mujhri, Kodo, and pulses using the 'Batririri' method. We also store the seeds at home for the following year and then re-sow them in the field; this practice is a legacy from our ancestors.

— Ram Kumari · Sonbhadra, Uttar Pradesh

We cultivate seeds such as chickpea, lentil, mustard, and horse gram using traditional, possibly rain-fed, farming methods. We preserve these seeds and cultivate them using this traditional agricultural practice.

— Laxmi Sahu

Previously, we used to cultivate all crops like moong, urad, and kulthi, and we want to continue doing so in the future.

— Jyoti Senapati

We keep green gram, black gram, and horse gram seeds, and cultivate them in the second crop.

— Puspanjali Nag

Our traditional items are finger millet, foxtail millet, proso millet, black gram, paddy, all these are ours. Then there's black gram, pigeon pea, and all these things.

— gobardhan pangi · Upperpur, Malkangiri, Odisha

Sawa, Medo, Mijhri are our traditional crops, which our ancestors used to cultivate by plowing with bullocks and a plough. They consumed these crops throughout the year and saved seeds in their homes for the next year's sowing. We still practice farming today.

— Ram Kumari · Sonbhadra, Uttar Pradesh

I cultivate pulse crops without irrigation. We save pulse seeds, among which horse gram, black gram, and pigeon pea are the oldest varieties. We save these seeds for cultivation every year. Our ancestors used to cultivate using manure and traditional ploughs.

— DASHARATH SINGH

Our ancestors used to cultivate mung bean, urad, horse gram, ragi, and mustard. At that time, it used to rain, and there were forests.

— Anirudha Marai

We store black gram, green gram, finger millet, horse gram, foxtail millet, and pearl millet for future cultivation.

— Batakrushna Sahoo

Our royal forefathers used to cultivate Birahi, Kulut, Mukh, Deshoris, and Badam in their lands. And all these seeds are very important for us.

— RINA BEHERA · Sundargarh, Odisha

Our fathers and grandfathers used to cultivate traditional crops earlier, fertilizing them with cow dung, and grew pulses like moong, urad, kulthi, along with millets such as ragi and bajra.

— Parikshit Majhi

We cultivate mustard, black gram, and horse gram.

— Puspanjali Nag

Precious seeds: Pearl millet, Black gram, Sorghum, Bhaadi Kodo millet, Barnyard millet, Bati.

— Kachala Choudhary

Finger millet, black gram, green gram, etc.

— Abhimaneu Sabar

Yes, I collect my own seeds. Mung and Black Gram are the most valuable seeds for our family. I have horse gram, black gram, bajra (pearl millet) and Mugeisal rice as old seeds. For us...

— gadadhar dash

Our plows and bullocks till the fields, we sow millet, maize, make furrows, and plant small seeds, and also save seeds for the next year. This is a legacy from our ancestors, which we still have today and which we utilize.

— Ram Kumari · Sonbhadra, Uttar Pradesh

The traditional seeds are pearl millet, smooth sorghum, and Bhadi kodo millet.

— Kachala Choudhary

We have traditional seeds here like Saadia, paddy, pigeon pea, semi-native gourds, Karaiguta, Chipra, etc. We preserve these every year and cultivate them using old traditional methods without irrigation.

— Rupesh Maravi · Mandla, Madhya Pradesh

We cultivated rainfed crops like pigeon pea, mung bean, and black gram, and will continue to cultivate and preserve them for the future.

— bachcha lal · Shahganj, Sonbhadra, Uttar Pradesh

Traditional farming, meaning Yudung, Pandala, Janana, maize, finger millet, and so on.

— James

Here, we cultivate paddy, sawa, medon, and mijhri. We store sawa, medon, and mijhri at home for sowing in the next year. Additionally, among pulses, we have kurthi and baturi, which we also store and sow the following year.

— Ram Kumari · Sonbhadra, Uttar Pradesh

The best and strongest seeds cultivated earlier were kodo, menjar, sawa, maize, and millet. These were all the crops grown.

— Kamleah Kumar · Sonbhadra, Uttar Pradesh

The oldest seeds like Kodo, Mejdri, Sawa, Maize, Bajra, all these crops were cultivated with agricultural fertilizer.

— Kamleah Kumar · Sonbhadra, Uttar Pradesh

Yes, we grow other crops and also preserve seeds like black gram, pigeon pea, and green gram.

— Jagannath Baraik · Ranchi, Jharkhand